


But the golden age is over

by Trifoliate_undergrowth



Series: HL2 lyric titles whump :) [1]
Category: Half-Life
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, M/M, The Freehoun is purely referenced as background in this, basically a retelling of the HL2 intro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29479356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trifoliate_undergrowth/pseuds/Trifoliate_undergrowth
Summary: Gordon is experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions. He's just woken up in a strange dystopia, but hey, at least Barney's alive! He's acting different, though. It's like... How long has it been?
Relationships: Barney Calhoun/Gordon Freeman
Series: HL2 lyric titles whump :) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2165277
Kudos: 19





	But the golden age is over

It took Gordon a few seconds to orient himself. In that time, scenery had rushed past, and the floor rocked rhythmically under him, forcing him to spread his feet and catch his balance; the motion had made a man nearby look at him in muted surprise—he was obviously deep in thought, or he would’ve been more startled—and mumble “didn’t see you there,” then look away again, obviously more worried about himself than the unexpected stranger nearby. There was a loud noise—a train whistle. He was on a train. He was inside a moving train, with two other men in what looked like prison uniforms. The train was moving through a modern city. Lots of concrete, not much to see other than that. The train’s interior was dirty as hell and he decided immediately not to touch anything.

Looking down, he realized he was wearing the same kind of uniform as the others.

The train gave another jerk, and he swayed on his feet, still not quite used to its movement.

What had that strange man in the suit said? That weird uncomfortable babbling about sleeping on the job (he was _pretty sure_ he had been _sedated_ ) and then—something about how it wouldn’t have done any good to have him awake sooner? Surely he could have done with a little more context for—whatever was going on here, even if he wasn’t meant to _do_ anything yet. And where the hell was he?

He felt his heart racing as the train slowed to a jerky stop. The doors slid open. Neither of the other two men seemed eager to be the first off, but neither was Gordon.

“Well,” said the one who’d spoken to him before, turning towards him now as if any distraction was a welcome one, “End of the line…” his voice shook a little.

Gordon didn’t know what to say. He got out of the train.

This didn’t clear anything up.

He was in a dingy train station. Surprising amount of chain link up. Was Black Mesa still under military control? No, that city hadn’t looked like Black Mesa, he knew just about every inch of it. So where—

A huge screen on the opposite wall crackled to life with a recorded video. “Welcome!”

He flinched, first from the shock, then remained still for a moment, staring up at the talking head on the screen in confusion. He knew that guy… he knew that guy? Who was that guy?? He didn’t like him, he remembered that much. He had some kinda weird name. Brine? He was pretty sure it was similar to Brine. He remembered making fun of it with Barney and making him laugh. He was one of the Lambda high-ups, right? Maybe? But he hadn’t seen him during the incident, he was pretty sure, or he’d remember— _Breen_ , that was it! Breen survived? That was. Okay. Whatever. He didn’t really care.

There was a checkpoint. The masked guards didn’t look like any military he knew, but he didn’t know what else to call them either. They were distracted with someone else, so he walked past, throat tight, unable to do anything but trust that the man in the suit knew what he was doing and that he could get out of this by just keeping his head down and putting one foot in front of the other.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing. What good was he supposed to do here if he hadn’t even been told what he was supposed to be doing? Maybe—and this gave him another spike of anxiety—they (and he still didn’t even know who _they_ were, that man’s “employers”,) thought that if they told him what he was supposed to do too early it would give him time to run away if he didn’t like it. Maybe they meant to manipulate events around him so that he’d end up doing what they wanted without needing to be told. Was any of this even real? He knew suit man could teleport and remove his weapons without even touching him, and had presumably sedated him without touching him either—the alternative was that he’d actually been conscious after the portal, but just couldn’t remember it, which he felt was almost worse—

Whatever was happening, he needed to get out of the train station without being stopped. He didn’t know who the guards were but he didn’t like the way they looked, and everyone else he’d seen in a uniform like his own had been visibly tense, trying to avoid their notice. He did the same. So far no one had stopped him. He kept going forwards, trying to look like he knew where he was supposed to go.

That recording was still going. What kind of name was _City 17_? What, was he in Blade Runner? That was supposed to be a joke. It wasn’t funny.

He reached a junction, and one of the guards motioned him to the side with a nasty-looking baton. He complied. Act natural. Act natural.

A gate slid shut in front of him. He stopped. Now what. Everyone was looking at him. Act natural. He wasn’t sure what was supposed to be natural here. He was pretty sure he was supposed to look scared, so he was probably doing okay.

Now one of the guards was addressing him personally. That couldn’t be good. But he was told to follow, so he followed—keeping an eye out for anything he could use as a weapon.

For just a moment, as the guard turned to walk in front of him, he thought something about them seemed familiar. Maybe the way they walked. But that was just the way anyone wearing heavy combat boots walked. All the guards at Black Mesa developed a similar heavy step.

As he passed a room he saw the man from the train, now sweating and arguing with a guard. The guard covered the window.

The next room was identical, but empty. There was dried blood pooled on the floor.

“Back up,” the guard growled, voice distorted through the mask. He backed up, the backs of his legs hitting the chair. He expected to be shoved into it and strapped down, but the guard instead turned his back to him and walked away.

…Huh. This guy must be new, or very overconfident. There was stuff in here—boxes—anything heavy? There was a glass bottle, that would do well enough—he grabbed it and tried to hold it out of sight at his side, until he needed it. He was shaking. He could do this. He wished he had better weapons but he’d make it work. Should he wait until the guard came back to him or try to sneak up while his back was turned? If he messed that up it could go real bad. But then, if he waited for a better opportunity it’d give the guard longer to notice that he’d picked up a weapon.

The guard was… turning the cameras off, for some reason? Did this guy _want_ to die? He guessed the suit man knew what he was doing after all by sending him here but God he would have appreciated just the smallest crumb of context for what the hell was going on. Oh, the guard was mumbling something about privacy. Right, all the blood. He sounded absolutely delighted. Good. Gordon wouldn’t feel bad about killing him. He gripped the neck of the bottle tight and started towards him, but the guard turned just as he was starting and unable to decide whether to run for it or try to pretend like he hadn’t moved, Gordon froze, only for a second, but it was long enough. Long enough for him to notice that the guard was, for some reason, removing their mask. Good less protection for their face. What was the least-protected part of him to start hitting?

Why did he look familiar?

“Now, about that beer I owed you,” the guard said conversationally, tossing his mask aside and crossing his arms. He was smiling.

He mouthed his name almost before he’d consciously recognized him. _Barney_. Barney kept talking.

“It’s me, Gordon, Barney. From Black Mesa?”

Why did he think he had to introduce himself? To _him_? Did he think Gordon wouldn’t recognize him? Well, yeah, he _was_ still holding a bottle like a melee weapon. He dropped it, shoulders sagging with relief.

“Barney,” he signed, hands free now, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Sorry for the scare, I had to put on a show for the cameras.”

He was saying something else and it was probably important (what was civil protection?!) but Gordon was still stuck on the euphoric shock of realizing that he was here, he was safe—well, he was involved in whatever this mess was, but he was _alive_ , he hadn’t died at Black Mesa like Gordon had feared when he couldn’t find him. He’d looked for him, gone to his room—got attacked by what was left of his roommate—but he hadn’t had time for much more than that. Barney hadn’t been there, at least, and none of the dead security guards he’d passed had been Barney, but every time he found one it seemed less likely that Barney would have escaped. He should’ve had more faith in him.

“Good to see you,” he signed, still at a loss for words, and tried to hug him. Barney stiffened up, breaking off his explanation mid-sentence. Gordon backed away, confused. Barney gave him an awkward arm pat before turning away.

“Hey, Kleiner got out too, did you know? I’m guessing you’ve already been in contact with him.”

“I haven’t been in contact with anyone _what is happening_ ,” signed Gordon, but Barney wasn’t looking at his hands and that gave him a bad feeling. He was usually so good at watching his hands, noticing the movement if he tried to say something. But then he heard Dr. Kleiner’s voice from the screen, and boy it was like he was back at another normal day at work. He had the usual ‘how dare you drag me away from my work for mealtime’ voice, and Gordon was grinning in recognition by the time Kleiner recognized him and responded in kind. It was reassuring to know _someone_ was glad to see him.

Barney… wasn’t _not_ glad to see him, but why was he so stiff? He’d turned off the cameras, right? He didn’t need to act. Come on, they’d been sharing a bed just last… week.

He looked different. Gordon took a moment to take it all in. He’d gained weight, his voice was rougher and there was a grey streak in his hair. His stubble covered more of his cheeks. His face was scarred, and one of his eyes had been damaged somehow, so that the brown faded into bleached blue; Gordon couldn’t even imagine what could have caused that. And as for Kleiner, it was less noticeable, but he definitely looked older than Gordon remembered.

None of that could happen in one week. He’d be surprised if it all happened in one _year_.

How long had he been gone?

They were talking about what to do with him but he was still so lost. Who are they talking about, Alex? Alyx??? _Alyx Vance_? That’s a kid. Eli and Azian’s kid. He babysat her last month. She really liked juice and playing tag. He nearly passed out after the fifth game, children have way too much energy. If Alyx is out wandering this hellhole on her own how old is she? What would she even look like?

Someone beat on the door, and Barney hurried him out the back door. He didn’t have time to ask how long it had been.

The city was even worse than he’d thought. Those masked guards were everywhere. It couldn’t have gotten like this overnight, but how long? It couldn’t have been long, it couldn’t, he’d just fallen asleep for a little while, surely he wouldn’t be _alive_ if it had been multiple years since—

Alyx found him, and he couldn’t deny it any longer. “I doubt you remember me,” she laughed, as if he could forget—but she was a _child_ , why was she _the same age as he was_? Alyx Vance, an adult. He could pick her up with one arm the last time he’d seen her, and as far as his memory was concerned, that had just been last week.

It must have been at least 20 years.

He was shaking as he followed Alxy into Kleiner’s new lab, and not only because she’d just saved him from an ambush. 20 years. Alyx was grown. Barney had grey hair and was some kind of double agent. They had whole lives he knew nothing about. He didn’t even know how the world worked anymore, no one had bothered explaining to him who the masked guards worked for or how they had taken over; all he knew was that they wanted to kill him.

20 years. He was surprised they still remembered him. But then, it probably helped that he looked exactly the same, unlike the rest of them.

20 years had been stolen from _his_ life, too. What would he look like now, if he’d lived those 20 years with his friends? What experiences would he have had? Who would he be? There was no way of knowing.

Kleiner was delighted to see him. So was Barney, once he was able to get away from his duties and visit; though he was still cool about it. Distant. How could he blame him, now that he knew? He’d been gone for 20 years. He might as well have died. 

Oddly enough, it was the teleporter near-death experience that gave him some hope. Despite Barney’s distrust of the machine (from what he understood, he’d helped Kleiner with an early test that went traumatically wrong for an unfortunate cat), despite being unwilling to even come near it at first, Kleiner had to yell at him not to reach into it and try to pull him out. Thrown between worlds, he held onto that comfort—Barney, hovering just at the edge of the field, reaching for him, face tense, promising to get him out—

“ _Gordon Freeman_ ,” said Wallace Breen with indescribable hatred.

Gordon shrugged with a little manic laugh. Sure, this might as well happen.

And then he was back. Sort of. And then he had to run.

Why was it so comforting to see Barney _stop_ smiling? Nothing was the same, it couldn’t be, but on some level, he still cared. That was… something. That kept him going, through the canals.

When this was over, they had to talk.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Golden Age by Woodkid.  
> “Barney always had heterochromia actually you just couldn’t see it in the earlier model” fascinating proposition! How about: no! <3 its Combine inflicted injury of some sort : ) but he DID always have 6 fingers like on that promotional poster we are supposed to forget : ) : )  
> (edit: wtf I can't find that post anywhere now did I hallucinate that where was it I SWEAR--)  
> Anyways I DO love some Gordon angst but daaaaamn there is not enough discussion of the fact that Barney lost his friend and had to grieve and get over him and accept that he wasn’t coming back and TWENTY YEARS LATER Gordon just. SHOWS UP out of nowhere. How does your brain even cope with that.  
> With reflexive surface-level friendliness until you can get him out of the room and scream what the fuck is my life. …lol Gordon isn’t the only one going “oh geez, act natural, act natural what’s natural how do I do that”  
> Now, I’m bad at finishing things, but the plan for this is to have a chapter fic on those 20 years for Barney before coming back around to the 2 of them reuniting in half life 2 and actually having that talk. Hopefully. At some point. I feel like this is basically just the intro


End file.
